Editor’s note: “The Spoken Word” is shared by Derrick Porter each Sunday during the weekly Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square broadcast. This will be given Sunday, Oct. 19, 2025. This week is No. 5,014 of the broadcast.
Fear is a great immobilizer. It’s so powerful that its effects can include diminished self-confidence and abandoned dreams. Fear does all it can to work itself into our minds and hearts and then demands it be allowed to stay even as it selfishly seeks to monopolize our thoughts and feelings.
Like you, I know something of fear and at times have felt its pangs. But this I also know — faith and fear cannot exist in the same heart at the same time. (See “Lectures on Faith,” published in 1985, page 71.) This truth brings me comfort because in its statement lies the answer to conquering fear, and that answer is faith.
So what do we do when we’re plagued with fear? How do we move forward? We take two steps at a time.
Step 1: We pray. We plead with heaven above for relief. We talk through our fears with Him who always listens, and we stay on our knees until the fear leaves. And if it returns? We pray again and again and sometimes again.
Step 2: We move forward in faith while courageously filling our hearts and minds with the things of God. Richard L. Evans had this to say about fear: “One way to cast out our fears is to not leave room for them in our lives. It is usually the vacant house that acquires a reputation for being haunted. And it is perhaps equally true that the more vacant our lives are, the more likely they are to be haunted by fears. The idle [person] has more room for … fears, more time to feed them and indulge them, than [those] whose [lives are] filled with good works.” (See “Antidote to Fear,” by Richard L. Evans, “Music & the Spoken Word,” March 31, 1946.)
And after we’ve taken these steps? We take them again. As we pursue faith, our fear is cast out. We then can look back and realize that our faith in God has created miles of space between yesterday’s fears and today’s peace of mind.
The spirit of fear does not come from God (see 2 Timothy 1:7). Instead, He says, “Fear not” (Luke 12:32; also Isaiah 43:1; Doctrine and Covenants 6:34-36; 98:1-2).
As we look to God in every thought, doubting not and fearing not (see Doctrine and Covenants 6:36), our confidence will grow and our faith will triumph over all our fears.
Tuning in …
The “Music & the Spoken Word” broadcast is available on KSL-TV, KSL News Radio 1160AM/102.7FM, KSL.com, BYUtv, BYUradio, Dish and DirecTV, SiriusXM (Ch. 143), tabernaclechoir.org, youtube.com/TheTabernacleChoir and Amazon Alexa (must enable skill). The program is aired live on Sundays at 9:30 a.m. Mountain Time on these outlets. Look up broadcast information by state and city at musicandthespokenword.com/viewers-listeners/airing-schedules.
